Lucas Torreira’s agent has hinted the Uruguay international could look to leave Arsenal this summer with his preference being a return to Italy.
Despite a solid first year at the Emirates, the 24-year-old was said to be interested in a move to AC Milan last summer when his old Sampdoria boss, Marco Giampaolo, took over as head coach.
Torreira found game time much harder to come by in the first half of the current campaign with Unai Emery claiming the midfielder was not disciplined enough to play in a holding position. It pissed him off.
Mikel Arteta was quick to rectify the situation when he took over in December and our diminutive terrier looked to be getting back to his best before injury struck.
Torreira was due to miss the rest of the season with a fractured ankle but the coronavirus situation has given him time to recover and he should be available if things resume in June.
Whether he’ll still be a Gunner come next season remains to be seen; his agent isn’t so sure he will be.
“Lucas had some differences with his coach and was a bit annoyed about it, but then he bounced back,” representative Pablo Bentancur told Tuttomercatoweb.
“The injury came after that, but luckily it’s not as serious as we feared it would be. Now he’s completely recovered and I think he’ll be a wanted man in the transfer market.
“I still have to talk to Arsenal. The player would love to return to Italy, although it must be acknowledged that Arsenal have treated him very well.”
Obviously, given the circumstances, it’s very difficult to predict what will happen in the transfer market. We suspect Mikel Arteta won’t want to let Torreira leave but, at the same time, he’s hinted he’s not really in the mood to keep those who don’t want to be at the club. We’ll see how things shake out.
I love Torreira and would be sad if he left. I imagine it’s one of those not totally comfortable in England situations which is fair enough. We don’t want to force people to stay x
About 80% of the South American players end up having adjustment issues when moving to England. We have had some great players join the premier league, but it just doesn’t work well for them. This should be a big factor in signing future players.
What situation? It is more climate and cultural problem. Many South Americans have problems adjusting in England. I totally understand him. Life in England is totally different. Italy at least little reminds him of home. I was not suprised that he wanted to leave last Summer already. I was actually more pleasently suprised with Sanchez’s attitude in England. Maybe because he is more introvert person.
Apart from adaptation, Torriera is just not suited to the physicality of the league. Love his attitude but too lightweight, easily pushed and outrun
You’ve never actually seen him play, because if you had you’d realise what a load of tripe you’ve just written.
Torreira is great when he has a fairly limited role to perform and space to control – i.e as a pure DM next to a quite disciplined midfield partner. Playing alongside Xhaka he’s been mostly very good – and these have been the only games our midfield could assert any sort of control in the last couple of years. When Emery asked him to be a roy of the rovers type b2b / ball-winning / creative midfielder, his physical limitations became obvious. He was too lightweight for that mess of a role, easily outfought/outrun etc. He’s not a midfield general,… Read more »
Sanchez though he was gods gift to Arsenal. His attitude stunk.
Sanchez’ high intensity, direct playstyle definitely suited the PL down to the ground. But yeah his attitude wound me up, even when he was basically carrying us in the first 2 seasons The most annoying thing to me was his mad, ineffective 30 second pressing forays all on his own, just so he could fling his arms around in righteous indignation at his teammates and get his name roared out by the crowd. The lone pressing itself just created easily exploitable gaps, and to compound things, he’d spend the next 5 mins walking around hand on hips because he’s knackered… Read more »
I’m really hoping this is more “Torreira wants a better contract” than “Torreira wants Italy” kind of deal if you know what I mean.
Have some fucking pity Lucas. We already concede like 2-3 goals a game.
I wouldn’t be disappointed if we sold him for a decent price, he’ too small and gets bullied off the ball too often. Although he’s a really brave player the referees don’t protect him and he ends up getting hurt. Probably best for him if he goes back to Italy, the weather’s nicer there too.
I think a certain N’Golo Kante kind of scrapped the whole “you need to be a massive man to be a CDM” model.
Torreira isn’t Kante though and I don’t know if hes’ ever shown signs he’ll get to that level.
No, he’s just the guy who popped out when Mislintant was looking for someone statistically similar to Kante.
Agreed. Torreira is certainly not Kante. Kante is a top 2 or 3 defensive midfielder in three world. I’m just saying that Kante has proven that you don’t need physical prowess to be elite at his position.
It’s hard to say. He just turned 24 and I would argue that he spent a fair amount of the past couple years being misused (or at least used in a way that didn’t allow him to play to his strengths). I have faith that Arteta, with what we’ve seen of him so far as a manager and with his own experience as a successful midfielder, has a better grasp on that, so I hope Torreira can be convinced to give it more time. Of course, with the likelihood that the transfer market is going to be significantly depressed, selling… Read more »
Kante, as Wenger put it, has physical intelligence, times his tackles really well.. other than that, he can carry the ball and has a mean final ball..
This.
It’ll be interesting to see what profile of player Arteta replaces him with.
The coach knows that in Guardiola’s first year at Man City they won nothing (partly because Wenger’s tactical masterclass in the FA Cup knocked them out lol) and so began targeting physically imposing giants like Laporte and Rodrigo at CB and CM.
The spinal players we’ve been linked with – Gabriel at Lille, Disasi at Reims, Gerson at Flamengo – are all 6ft tall or more.
Not sure how right you are about guardiola targeting ‘giants’. He only bought rodri this season after already winning prem twice. Even Laporte is only 6’3 ish so hardly huge for a cb and was purchased for speed/reading of game rather than height.
I hear we are in for Lazlo Thunderfarten…could be quite the player. sounds like a real speed racer.
Happy for Torreira to move if replaced by Thomas Partey. We need more mobile central midfielders and I like the way Partey breaks down play and plays balls forward and behind the defence straight away.
Agree with Arteta’s philosophy. If a player doesn’t want to stay, let them go. We need more heart and desire to revive this dead team. We need players who are willing to give it their all, and whose hearts will be in the club.
if we can get £35mill+ then we should take it. He is a decent little player. But we need something else to get to the next level. There are plenty of other people that I would look to move on before him but he has got decent value and profit in him.
I don’t see anyone in Italy having £35 million+ to spend this summer. Torreira is only 23, with the right players around him, he might really kick on over the next 12- 24 months. I think we need stability, and that means taking time to develop young players and building a team, which I certainly don’t see happening overnight. We’ve really struggled in the few games where we’ve partnered Guendouzi and Torreira, but at 19/20 + 22/23 that’s to be expected, that why they cost £26mill + £7 million, and not 2x £50million. Buying talented young players to develop, but… Read more »
fwiw I read the agent’s words (didn’t hear the audio) and itt sounds like “Apples, luvverrlly apples, 4-for-a-paaound, who wants me apples?” ie agent making a vaguely ‘he could be interested but I don’t want to piss off his club’ comment to see whether his phone might ring. But, y’know, transfer season has started so I’m not complaining about this article, just… I’d be more interested in whether his phone rang. fwiw #2 I’d like Torreira to stay as I like his attitude on the pitch, but if he wanted to leave I’d be ok and wave him off and… Read more »
Is he really gonna leave and go to Italy now?
they’re still in lockdown and he is still in
rehabilitation..
Meanwhile we can’t get rid of Xhaka or Ozil to save our lives. SMH
I really like Xhaka, he’s mature, has a great work ethic, and is by far our most important midfielder, with over 450 career games at club and international level. While I think we could seriously benefit from a more dynamic player, my worry would be after losing Cech, Monreal, Rambo, Koscielny from the dressing room last summer, without Xhaka and maybe Aubameyang? We’d be left with just Bellerin and the erratic Luiz to lead the dressing room. We’ve got some very good young players, but without experienced players with some tactical nous to guide them, reaching their potential will become… Read more »
EPL clearly not the best league for him.
He seems a good lad, would wish him well wherever he goes on the continent, simple as.
Perhaps Juve would agree to swap for Rabiot who needs a challenge…
If you don’t love the badge, well …………………
Sell him and anyone else who isn’t happy to be there or just isn’t good enough.
We should absolutely do a deal if there’s one to be made. Like him as a player but he’s clearly not happy here and he’s hardly irreplaceable. Money could go into getting Partey or similar too. Question will be if anyone can stump up the cash for the fee.
Good squad player, but overhyped and overrated. Arsenal fans don’t have very high standards these days.
On form he has been a real asset, but a run of games seems to take more out of him than other players. Probably simply his style of play, but Italy would be a lot more leisurely pace.
Fake News!!!